The "launch" was a bit ineptly handled, and I just have to wonder what was going through their mind. "Lets redirect all traffic to our site to a 'Launch at 2:00AM Pacific' screen, because no one could possibly want to go the forums or support sections of the site for a day or two, or see what the game is about".

And then after the several patches today, I still get to look at a "Welcome to the Open Beta" screen. They overlook the oddest things in this game.

I liked Supreme Commander 1 quite a bit. The lack of attachment to the mass produced units was a plus for me. Every so often now, I still play Forged Alliance, with Sorian's AI mod to make a decent opposition.

The non-functioning mod manager and lack luster AI (improved in the expansion w/ AI Cheat options, and player AI mods) were some of the weak points. TA had two things over SC: 1) there was a greater depth of flavor, as you had options of various weapons for defenses (missile, lasers, artillery, units); 2) Water buildings. The lack of water salvage and buildings was a major detriment to SC.

The world conquest game in Kane's Wrath is not broken up into territories. you can select basically any point for "bases" which then create a circle of influence around it, which figures into victory condiditons. (GDI needs to control X(60?)% of the planet, NOD needs to incite X number of cities into "red" status, Scrin need to construct 9 Towers).

I can see why they went w/ the "no territories" method, but it'd be interesting to see if they will patch in another mode something like Dark Crusade's version of it.

One major problem that made me not like it enough to play, is that "task force" (army) movement only happen at the start of your next turn after ordering it... Which is after everyone's strategic weaponry goes into effect. Which then makes the insanity of your "task forces" moving in to attack after being nuked down to 3 out of 15 units, with no possible input from the player.

Also, the tactical combat (the normal RTS style) for the global conquest mode is changed: After a very short period of time, all vision is given, and some time after that all stealth is neutralized.

The Notum Wars material is available for non-subscriber use. Shadowlands, Lost Eden, and Alien Invasion are reserved for subscribers.

1/4 for expansions being free isn't bad. Although, I'd like access to the "Perks" system (every so many lvls, you get choices for nifty bonuses).

My only real complaints would be that Funcom messes up the ads, which have from time to time resulted in the game crashing, or obnoxious loops being played over and over. But haven't had those problems in the last month, so perhaps those QA people are on the ball now?

As for the new graphical engine, it'd be nice if lights were made more dynamic... Skins/textures and so on are nice, but I'd like the light objects to work in first person, or a light-effect for nanoprograms, or flares even.

Micromanagement in battle of the starcraft kind (unit special abilities require clicking on each individual to use), lag spikes causing me to hear a 2s sound loop for 15s during briefing, and the game messing with your camera whenever you use basic functions thus having to fight the interface a bit just to play.

And on the torrent/download debate, I got 450 kb/s from http://www.gameupdates.org/ 's torrent, which I tried after failing a download from Gamer's Hell due to a momentary connection interruption. I <3 resume, error checking, and speed.

Considering the a significant percentage of the community managed to find a large user interface flaw (lack left/right click option) and EA's response was "We know better on how people should work with the interface, we'll consider it for a patch, now shut up about it!", I'm not exactly holding my breath for EA to give non-dysfunctional support of the game through its lifespan. I fully expect several major bugs that would have been apparent from a cursory playing of the game.